THE NEW YORKER, DECEMBER 10, 2018 49
downtown's narrow alleys, arriving at
the F.S.A. headquarters. They chanted
at the Nusra fighters, "Get out!" Gun-
men who were perched on the com-
pound wall held their fire. The crowd
pressed right up to the wall, just inches
from the gunmen, crying, "Allahu akbar!,"
in repudiation of Nusra's claim to le-
gitimacy. It was now five hours since
Hossein had arrived at the headquar-
ters, and for the first time that day he
felt a surge of hope.
A truck loaded with Nusra fighters
sped out from a side street, but pro-
testers surrounded it. Their chants
continued until, suddenly, pandemo-
nium broke loose at the sound of
machine-gun fire: Nusra was shooting
over people's heads. Hossein screamed,
"Don't shoot!" The Nusra fighters made
a move for the bunker, but demonstra-
tors swarmed in front of the entrance.
A Nusra gunman shot a protester in
the leg. Azzo pushed through the crowd
and jumped in front of the bunker door.
He'd removed his shirt, his belly gleam-
ing in sweat. The fighter pointed his
weapon and shouted at him to move.
Azzo refused and shouted, "For you,
Saraqib!"The gunman fired, and Azzo
crumpled to the ground.
Azzo's brother, who was also in the
crowd, rushed to his side. The fright-
ened protesters melted away, allowing
Nusra to enter the bunker. The gun-
men detained the Ahrar al-Sham leader
and withdrew from the premises. Azzo
was rushed to the hospital, but doctors
failed to revive him.
Saraqib was now under Nusra's con-
trol. People were wandering the streets,
agitated and unsure what to do. When
an ambulance emerged from the hos-
pital, carrying Azzo's body, a crowd
gathered behind it, raising revolution-
ary flags, and a row of honking cars
and motorcycles formed. The proces-
sion inched through the dark streets to
the martyrs' cemetery. Mourners prayed
as Azzo was covered in the three-star
flag and buried.
Back at the farmhouse, Hossein felt
depleted. The election, only twenty-
four hours old, seemed like a distant
memory. After six years of struggle,
and so many friends missing or dead,
his town had merely replaced one form
of tyranny with another. He roused
himself and checked Facebook. Peo-
ple were leaving memorials on Azzo's
page: photographs of him coaching the
soccer team or chanting at protests.
Azzo, who had not attended college,
had listed his education as "the Syrian
Revolution." Hossein posted a tribute
and included as a hashtag Azzo's last
words: ForYouSaraqib.
The next morning, he checked Face-
book again, and saw that activists were
using ForYouSaraqib to denounce
Nusra and, improbably, to call for an-
other protest. He rushed downtown.
To his amazement, the crowd
had doubled in size from the
previous day. The mass of
bodies surged toward the
courthouse, which Nusra had
made its headquarters. A
young man raised his arm
and shouted, "Saraqibis don't
fear death! We will not aban-
don the revolution!" A cho-
rus of voices repeated these
words. Marchers screamed,
"Your blood, O Mousab, we will never
forget!" and "We will sacrifice for you,
O martyr!"
Nusra gunmen stood nervously
on the courthouse roof. One of them
pointed an R.P.G. at the demonstrators,
and a protester shouted, "He's going
to shoot us!" The crowd chanted
"Shabiha! "---the word used to describe
pro-regime thugs. A young man held a
sign that read " -
, ' !"
The air crackled: Nusra was again
firing over people's heads.The protest-
ers scrambled, hiding behind parked
cars. But then they began inching back
toward the courthouse, and soon the
street was full again.
Hossein counted ten Nusra fighters.
Despite their camouflage uniforms
and bandoliers, they looked over-
whelmed, even terrified, at the tenac-
ity on display. They radioed their
superiors. Soon, a Nusra pickup truck
appeared and parked nearby. One by
one, the Nusra fighters began to climb
down from the rooftop.Taunting pro-
testers dragged each one to the truck.
As it rolled away, the crowd chanted,
"Shabiha! Shabiha! "
Nusra did not send reinforcements.
It could not risk further popular back-
lash---the group had recently faced pro-
tests in nearby towns. Demonstrators
climbed atop the courthouse, under a
fading amber sky, and hoisted the rev-
olutionary flag.
Over the next year, Saraqib remained
under the control of the rebels and
the Local Council, but it was surrounded
by a sea of Al Qaeda. There were sim-
ilar islands of resistance nearby. But, if
Nusra failed to seize outright military
control of these areas, it could always
resort to subterfuge, politicking, and
sowing terror. As in the old days of the
shabiha, activists found them-
selves being followed. Doc-
tors and aid workers were
kidnapped. Hossein received
threatening anonymous texts:
"O secular, O infidel, you will
be deprived of the blessed
land of the Levant." He kept
out of sight, avoiding all
meetings.
Then one day he got a
panicked call from a friend,
who'd heard that Nusra was conspiring
to abduct Hossein. Another activist de-
vised a getaway plan while Hossein hid
at friends' houses. One morning, he
packed his bags, kissed his parents good-
bye, and, with his wife, boarded a van
belonging to the grain-distribution di-
rectorate. The municipal vehicle was
able to pass Nusra checkpoints without
scrutiny, and by the afternoon he and
his wife had slipped into Turkey.
Even as a refugee, Hossein was
defiant. "Nusra does not scare me," he
said. "If I'm going to die, I'll die. But I
don't want to put those around me in
danger." His exile was temporary, he
insisted, and he planned to return to
Saraqib as soon as conditions allowed.
Back home, his comrades were still keep-
ing the town under revolutionary con-
trol, despite ongoing threats from Nusra.
But soon Saraqib was facing an even
greater peril. The Americans and their
allies had vanquished in eastern Syria,
and the Russian intervention had turned
the regime's fortunes around. Now Assad
was on the o ensive, and foreign pow-
ers started to abandon the rebels. The
regime began reconquering opposition
territory---and in January, , it set its
sights on Idlib province. As government
forces blitzed through the southern coun-
tryside, a hundred thousand residents
fled. The regime's immediate objective